Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >They must have gotten more efficient because when they started this whole 
> subsidised ethanol thing, our teen group investigated it and came up with 
> 1.25 to 1.5 gallons to produce a gallon.

They have not gotten more efficient and your figures are about right. You get 
the positive BTU yield by saying that the spent mash *can* be used for feed 
stuffs and then adding into the formula all the oil it would take to grow 
that 
equivalent amount of feed grains.  Several things wrong with this:  The mash 
sours quickly and then must be used very sparaingly as feed.  Unless this has 
changed, distilleries are not located at feedlots so there is the cost of 
handling and hauling the stuff.  For the moat part the feed value of the 
spent 
grains is theoretical rather than actual.

Keep in mind too that a gallon of ethanol only has 2/3 the btu's of gasoline.

If ethanol were not being heavily subsidized, if it were a business depending 
on profit, it would be bankrupt tomorrow.  And now that gasoline is backing 
off in price and ehtanol can't, who would buy the stuff?  Locally gasoline is 
$2.59 a gallon and E85 is $2.39.  Owing to less btu's and less mileage, if 
you 
buy the E85 now, you lose.